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76 Jurist 85 (2016)
Independent General Administrative Norms in Documents of the Roman Curia

handle is hein.journals/juristcu76 and id is 91 raw text is: THE JURIST 76(2016) 85-113 JOHN M. HUELS* Independent General Administrative Norms in Documents of the Roman Curia There are three categories of binding norms in canon law that have a gen- eral application (as opposed to singular administrative acts that are bind- ing on individual subjects of the law). These categories are (i) laws (leges) enacted by ecclesiastical legislators, (2) general administrative norms issued by executive authorities such as the dicasteries of the Roman Curia, and (3) customs that have the force of law. Our interest here is with the first two categories of norms, the written norms published in juridical documents of the Apostolic See that go by various names. These two cat- egories of norms are not equal. Laws are higher in juridical value than general administrative norms. Concretely, this means that, if a norm in a document of executive power is contrary to the law, it is null in keeping with the principle of legality in canon law.' All of this is well known to canonists. What is complicated and confusing, even at times to scholars of the law, is distinguishing in some instances which norms are legislative and which are administrative. In some measure, this confusion is due to the fact that the document forms used by the Apostolic See often are not reliable means of identifying the juridical value of the norms that they contain. Another problem is that the two categories of general executory decrees and instructions, as defined respectively in canons 31 §i and 34 §i, do not account for all the norms in documents of the Roman Curia, and this lacuna leads some canonists to misidentify these other administrative * Professor, Faculty of Canon Law, Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Canada. i. William L. Daniel, The Principle of Legality in Canon Law, TheJurist 70 (2010) 29-85-

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